The thing I hear the most is “You must be so patient!”. People assume that mosaic making must require a lot of patience from my side. But the truth is… not always! I think I can say I am good at waiting. I can wait for the train to arrive, or for the friend being late. I’m good at waiting in a queue for cinnamon buns. But all these things are easy to do. The waiting is also exciting because I know that my patience will be rewarded.

But what about patience in art? What about cutting small pieces of mosaic tesserae and slowly, piece by piece putting them together? At the beginning it all starts with just one mark, one brush stroke, one word. Or as in my case one piece of a stone or glass. It’s not much and it’s not very rewarding. And then comes the second one and third one and so on. Sometimes this happens very easily and naturally and I quickly find myself in the magical state of flow. But sometimes I distract myself with thoughts, with my to do list, with a whole bunch of unrelated things that most of the time I don’t have control over. But what I can control is this: adding more pieces.

Josie Lewis explained it best in her video (1.39) that “patience” implies doing something that we hate, something that we have to get over with like a visit to the dental hygienist. In my view the creative process however, no matter how painstakingly slow, does not require any patience if we choose it and enjoy doing it. Does anyone tell a hairdresser “You must have so much patience to be cutting and styling the hair”? Or to an avid mushroom picker “You must have so much patience walking around and looking for mushrooms”?

We do understand that the creative process involves work and commitment. I believe it requires passion rather than patience. It is passion that keeps us motivated and keeps us showing up for work. It is passion that helps us put layers upon layers of paint, and sentence after sentence on paper. Art is a process. It’s how makers make. The only difference is that we choose to be a part of this process. After all, in our daily lives we also can choose to be patient with our children’s never ending questions, with our pets chewing on furniture, or with our coworkers’ habits. Patience is not something only a handful of chosen few magically “have”. Patience is a very natural state that we all get to choose and practice.

In our ever faster world of instant noodles and instant messaging maybe we just simply forget that it is our choice to give our full undivided attention and time to the things we truly love and feel passionate about. When suddenly the world had stopped in March and I found myself at home with extra time on my hands, I saw a lot of my friends making bread from scratch. I didn’t. I'm not a baker. I honestly don't have the patience.